Recorded on June 13, 2025 at the Des Moines Art Center.
This lecture features a conversation between artist Firelei Báez and John and Mary Pappajohn Director and CEO Kelly Baum in celebration of Báez’s solo, self-titled exhibition opening at the Art Center.
On view June 13 through September 21, 2025, “Firelei Báez” explores the multilayered legacy of colonial histories and the African diaspora in the Caribbean and beyond. Báez draws on the disciplines of anthropology, geography, folklore, fantasy, science fiction, and social history to unsettle categories of race, gender, and nationality. Her paintings feature complex and layered uses of pattern, decoration, and saturated color, often overlaid on reproductions of archival imagery such as colonial maps or construction plans for colonial architecture.
